By Ryan Patrick

Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards, written by David Koepp, is another perfectly serviceable monster film. 

Look, the original Jurassic Park is one of my favourite films. Not exactly a controversial opinion I know; it is one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. I loved dinosaurs as a kid, I can remember being so excited to see the original. But I do share the opinion of Nick Mason from The Weekly Planet/Caravan of Garbage, that after the first film, the now 6 direct sequels are all roughlyn of the same quality. That is, not great. 

When it was announced, I exclaimed, “Do we really need another Jurassic Park film?” Have we not already said everything we can about the subject of dinosaurs chasing people? 

Still, I had some hope. I am a fan of the director Gareth Edwards, having loved Monsters, and even saw The Creator in cinemas. He is great at special effects and has an excellent eye for depicting scale and just visual grandure. But I was pretty burnt out on the Jurassic Park franchise. Sure, Jurassic World had some clever meta-commentary on the state of blockbuster filmsl, but aside from that, it was pretty soulless. And that’s not even mentioning Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, both of which I couldn’t even be bothered to finish. So my hopes were not high going into this. 

So here we are at Rebirth. It’s 2027, and dinosaurs have retreated to the tropics because apparently that’s the only place they can now survive. (What about them roaming all over the world in Dominion? That was the only interesting part of that film, which wasn’t even really explored! … I’m getting sidetracked here.) Which is a convenient excuse to go back to the island for the 5th time. I’m aware it’s technically a different island; this time it’s the other other island where InGen does its mutant experiments. But it’s for the same thing. So instead of rebooting the first film like World, we are now rebooting a mishmash of the second and third films. The ouroboros of modern IP driven culture munches on. 

This time, it’s a ragtag group of mercenaries, led by Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, recruited by the obviously evil pharma exec, Rupert Friend, to sneak onto the island. To find the 3 biggest dinosaur species, so they can take live DNA samples in the hopes of creating a new wonder drug that will cure heart disease. For some reason, it has to be one water based, one land based, and one flight based pokemon dinosaur.

Add in a shipwrecked family (divorced, of course) who our paper-thin protagonists pick up along the way in an extended Jaws homage. They, of course, then all get wrecked together on the island, and have to figure out their way off while still completing their mission. 

I guess we have to call it a Jaws homage since Spielberg is still a producer on this, but guys, that film is 50 years old now; can we move on? This is just the biggest one, with references to the originals films numbering at least 14 before I lost track counting. And don’t get me started on the blatant product placement throughout the film, starting literally seconds into the film with Snickers bar. I’m not joking. 

To Edwards credit, he does his best to try and recapture some of the magic of dinosaurs again. As mentioned before, he puts in his experience from films such as Rogue One and Godzilla with some stunning shots, with a great sense of scale. Really showing how majestic, and gigantic, these creatures would have been. Johansson and Ali do solid work with what they are given, Ali is as charming as ever, and the special effects are excellent. But this is a Jurassic Park film, they should be.Ultimately, Rebirth is technically proficient but about as empty as a dinosaur skeleton. The entire franchise should probably be buried now. It’s disconnected from the rest of the films, and I really can’t see where the direction forward is, or if there is even one. But it is making hundreds of millions of dollars, so I guess we will find ourselves back on another island in 3 years or so.